you could have been mine
by glitter blizzard
Summary: Severus might have envied Potter for his life before, but it was nothing compared to the hatred and jealousy he felt now. Onesided Snily. Jily.


**Disclaimer: Do not own HP.**

**A/N: Written for If You Dare Challenge (Continued) **

**Prompt #7 (green with envy). **

* * *

He'd always been there for her. Even when she no longer wanted to talk to him, _look _at him even, he was still there, always a faithful shadow.

When he first saw her, he thought she wasn't anything special, just a pretty muggle girl, with a smile as bright as the sun and hair as red as blood. But when he accidentally stumbled on her and her dreadful sister once, and witnessed her making accidental magic without even knowing, he felt immense pleasure and happiness. He wasn't sure why. She was a stranger, a muggleborn – a _mudblood, _his mother would say with distaste and nose thrust high in the air – but he could feel she was different. He could tell, just by looking at her.

She was special.

He'd been hesitant to approach her. He'd never been welcome on the playground with the other children. They took one look at his mismatched, ill-fitting clothes, lanky hair and pallid expression and avoided him like he carried a lethal illness. By this point, he didn't mind the rejection as much as he used to when he was younger – though it never got easier to see people's disdainful eyes and their grimaces at the sight of him – and he had braced himself for harsh words and disgusted glares.

None of that came.

Granted, he should have been more carefully about what he said. Any muggle girl would be offended at being called witch. He knew that. But in his excitement to tell her, to have finally found someone who was like him in that awful place, he had forgotten himself for a minute. She stormed off with her sister, throwing him an angry and confused look.

There was no disgust in how she looked at him. There was no immediate rejection. Unlike her sister, she had waited to hear him out before she judged him.

And she had listened to him.

Later that same day, he was still at the playground, sitting on a swing by himself and beating himself over the head for how tactless he'd been. If he had worded himself better, he might have found a friend in her.

In the midst of his wallowing and self-pity, he hadn't noticed her coming until she stood by the swing with her palm extended to him with an orange lily nestled on top. He watched with wide, surprised eyes as the blossoms opened and closed, like the flower was inhaling and exhaling deeply. The flamboyant colour wasn't to his liking but he found this particular lily incredibly beautiful, if just because it was a present from her.

When he looked up and met her green eyes, so wide and innocent and eager to learn and trust – trust _him _– she smiled a little smile and spoke. 'I really am a witch, aren't I?'

He smiled back, his heart jumping in his chest.

'Yes.' He confirmed, watching her carefully. Her smile only widened and she put the lily in his hand. It stopped moving as soon as it left her touch, and she moved to sit on the swing beside his.

'Please –' She'd always been so polite. 'Tell me more about it.'

He smiled again, feeling an unusual thrill shot up his body and through his veins. 'I guess I should tell you about Hogwarts first…'

…

The next year was the happiest of his life.

He and Lily hung out almost every day and they talked for hours on end. It was always he who spoke the most, as unusual as this arrangement was. Lily only asked questions and occasionally gave an awed comment. She always listened to him with bated breath, her eyes wide and drinking in every word he said.

He thought she might be sorted in Ravenclaw. It wasn't something he liked to think about as he was sure he would be sorted in Slytherin. There was no other place for him. He was green and silver through and through.

'Severus –' His heart always started beating erratically whenever she spoke his name. '— will you tell me about Hogwarts again?'

Out of everything he'd told her about the magical world, Hogwarts seemed to be the thing that fascinated her the most. He wasn't really surprised. Lily loved school and given that she was raised by muggles, a school where you were taught magic probably seemed like the most amazing thing in the world.

So he complied. He told her everything he knew about Hogwarts. He never got sick of telling the same thing over and over again.

He could never get tired of the admiring look she had in her eyes when she listened to him.

...

'Sev?' The quietness of her voice immediately alerted him that something was wrong. He turned his head and looked at her, and for a moment admired the way the rich green of her eyes matched perfectly the colour of the lush grass they lay on. She wasn't looking at him but at the sky, and her face was worried and unsure.

Suddenly, he knew what she was going to ask him.

'You said that it doesn't matter that my parents aren't magical.' She said quietly. 'But your mother doesn't like me because of it. How are you sure other people wouldn't be the same as her? What if they hate me?'

'My mother doesn't understand.' He said quickly, reaching out to take her hand. She let him, threading their fingers together and squeezing for assurance. He squeezed back. 'No one can hate you, Lily. It's impossible. You'd see.'

The smile she gave him helped him squash down the feeling of guilt for lying to her.

...

It was when they arrived at Hogwarts that things started to go downhill.

At first, everything was fine. He regretted and hated the sorting hat for sorting Lily in Gryffindor but he also vowed to himself that it didn't matter. She was still Lily. She was his best friend and the only person in the world who really saw him and understood him and he would be damned if he let some stupid prejudice stand between their friendship.

Oh, the naivety of the young.

It didn't take long for his dorm mates to start making a big deal out of it. Most of them were purebloods raised by parents obsessed with blood purity. He was already on their list for being a half-blood, and him hanging out with a muggleborn – _mudblood_, how he hated that word – only made things worse for him.

Lily's friend didn't like him either. He could tell. They all looked at him with the same disgust everyone else did. They were distrustful. They never bothered to get to know him – not that he wanted them to, they weren't important, only Lily was – and they dismissed him even before he opened his mouth. They were trying to make Lily stop hanging out with him.

He'd listened to not just one conversation where the tittering bints Lily called her best friends, were trying to convince her that he was 'bad news' and 'creepy' and 'evil Slytherin'.

But she stuck with him and that made him love her even more.

But then came Potter and his friends.

The golden boys of Gryffindor. Four of the most popular boys in the school. Four pranksters, relentlessly searching for trouble and people to prank and humiliate. No one saw them for what they really were; bullies. They were _charming _and they were _funny _and bloody Gryffindors. They didn't see it because they didn't want to.

But he did and he made sure Lily did too. He didn't want her sighing over them like the rest of the girls in school. He couldn't bear the thought of her liking any of the arrogant morons.

But unfortunately, he couldn't stop any of the arrogant morons from liking her.

And it was even worse, because it was none of other than James Potter, the ringleader of their gang, who had taken a liking to Lily.

Severus hated him the most, even before he publically professed his feelings for Lily. James had everything Severus wanted; a loving family, money, friends who adored him, etc, and he flaunted it shamelessly in his face. James didn't care who was hurting – he especially didn't care if he was hurting Severus, in fact, he enjoyed it – and that attitude made him one of the people Severus hated until his last breath.

But for a while, Severus seemed to have the upper hand in one regard.

Lily's affections.

She remained loyal to her dislike towards James and his bullying ways. She turned him down with harsh words and disdain. She always made sure her rejection was public, so everyone could see James Potter knocked down a few pegs.

But much to everyone's confusion and Severus' despair, that didn't seem to put off Potter. No, it only served to make him more determined to win over Lily.

Lily resisted for quite a while. It wasn't until that faithful day, the worst day in Severus life that things changed.

He hated himself so much for what he'd said back then. Their friendship had been rocky for a while but he'd been hopeful – naive – that things would get better between them. After all, every friendship went through their ups and downs and they just happened to be having a 'down' at the moment. It was going to pass. They were going to work it out.

Until Potter and his friends intervened.

They'd been continuously and progressively meaner towards him for the last three months of fifth year. It had gotten to the point where he couldn't allow himself to be alone in a corridor; unless it was a very late at night and he was sure they couldn't be anywhere close to him. He had surrounded himself with his dorm mates, who looked much more formidable and were much more vocal about their dislike for the four Gryffindors.

He had made the mistake of leaving the exam alone. He wanted to go through the whole exam in his head, to make sure he hadn't gotten anything wrong or had forgotten to write anything. Deep in thought, he'd forgotten about the four boys, who had been in the same exam as him, and headed outside to sit under the shade of one of the trees. He rarely allowed himself to sit outside with the rest of the school, unless it was with Lily, who hated to stay cooped inside when the weather was good.

Of course, they couldn't allow him to have some peace.

Before he knew it, he was hanging upside down by his ankle – his cheeks went red from humiliation and anger, he hated how they used _his _spells against him – and everyone was laughing at him and cheering on the four boys. They taunted him, humiliated him, insulted him and everyone laughed.

No one tried to help him. Except her.

He'd been seeing red from the anger, everyone's jeering laughter was ringing in his ears and he barely processed what she was saying to Potter. His lips moved before he could stop them. It was one of those rare moments when his tight control over his emotions slipped and his brain failed him.

It was the moment he regretted the most in his life. It was the moment he lost her; truly and forever.

'I don't need help from filthy little mudbloods like her!'

There was uproar of outraged cries from Potter and Black, and the rest of the school soon joined. The only thing Severus noticed, however, was Lily's devastated face. The hurt in her eyes was so big and so _obvious, _that he felt his heart clench in his chest.

In this particular moment, he hated himself more than he'd ever hated Potter.

...

'Lily, please! I didn't mean it, please, Lily! Listen to me! I can explain, I—'

She whirled around, hugging her books tightly to her chest. Her green eyes were seething, her cheeks were bright red. She was staring at him with so much anger and disgust, that he took an involuntary step back. It hurt, seeing her look at him like that. Like everybody else did.

'I've listened to you! I've listened enough. Times and times again I've listened to your useless explanations!' Her voice was quite hysterical and loud. Severus hated himself for making her so upset. 'But there's nothing you can say that will make this better! You called me a _mudblood! _' Her voice choked suddenly and she swallowed deeply. 'You choose them over me. I'm no different to you than the rest of the muggleborns in the school, so stop pretending that I am.' She tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked at him haughtily. 'Stop following me around. Stop bothering my friends. Our friendship is _over. _You have yourself to blame for that.'

Severus stood frozen in the dark hallway, watching her as she whirled around and stomped out of sigh, and subsequently, out of his life.

...

He never felt so much hatred and envy as the day after Christmas holidays when Potter and Lily walked in the Great Hall, hand in hand. Lily looked so happy, she practically glowed and Potter, he had that stupid dopey smile on his face and he was looking at Lily like she was the most beautiful bloody thing he'd ever seen.

It was positively nauseating sight.

And then – then it got worse.

Black, like the attention seeking idiot he was, had to amplify his voice to announce that his best friend had finally gotten the bird. And then, when James took the stage and told everyone just how in love with Lily he was and how glad he was that she finally accepted, she laughed, and climbed on the bench beside him, taking his hand and intertwining their fingers.

And then she _kissed _him. In front of everyone. In front of him._  
_

It was the ultimate betrayal. It was like she had plunged her hand in his chest and twisted his heart repeatedly until nothing but bloody mess was left in her hands.

Hands that once held his. Hands that once gave him breathing lilies all the time.

Severus might have envied Potter for his life before, but it was nothing compared to the hatred and jealousy he felt now.

He gripped the silver fork in his hand tighter and seethed quietly, never taking off his eyes off the laughing couple, silently plotting Potter's gruesome murder.

Green and silver through and through, indeed.


End file.
